Not upheld: Goods and services under S75 complaint against Barclays Bank plc trading as Barclaycard

Decision detail

Summary

Miss A paid approximately £1,000 via Barclaycard credit card for plumbing work through a services platform to fix a leak, but the leak persisted after two separate Taskers' work. She sought a Section 75 CCA refund and compensation, but Barclaycard rejected the claim arguing no valid debtor-creditor-supplier agreement existed because payment went to the platform, not the Taskers directly. The ombudsman found Barclaycard's technical reasoning was incorrect—a valid agreement did exist—but upheld the rejection because Miss A provided insufficient evidence that the Taskers' work breached the implied term of reasonable care and skill or caused the current leak. The ombudsman also found chargebacks would have had poor prospects of success and that the £50 compensation already paid for response delays was adequate.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Barclaycard incorrectly rejected the Section 75 CCA claim on debtor-creditor-supplier grounds (a valid agreement did exist), this error was immaterial because Miss A had failed to provide sufficient evidence that the services were not performed with reasonable care and skill. The evidence showed a leak persisted but did not clearly establish that the Taskers' work caused it or breached their contractual obligations. The work scope was unclear, the hours paid for appeared limited, and no clear causal link was demonstrated between the Taskers' work and the current leak. Similarly, chargebacks for the March 2025 payments would have had poor prospects of success given the weak evidence, and the August 2024 payment was outside the 120-day chargeback window.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website